Variations/Variantes
Variations/Variantes takes the idea of navigating through a multi-dimensional dataspace, as I call it, and provides an interface to 4 specific dimensions. The idea for the piece comes from a tool in Adobe Photoshop that allows one to navigate through an image’s colour space.
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| Photoshop Variations Window |
As one clicks on an image surrounding the Current Pick, one is traveling through an image’s colour space. Images around the current pick change to reflect the current location in the colour space. Just as Photoshop’s variations tool navigates through an image’s colour space based on colour and brightness, Variations/Variantes provides an interface to navigate through the oh, those everyday spaces dataspace in ways that focus on the unique qualities of the collection. Qualities like wind, temperature, and traveling speed are factors that affect a cyclist’s experience of any place. As one clicks on an image surrounding the current pick one travels around oh, those everyday spaces exploring relationships based on the dimension being investigated. As noted earlier, movements forward and backward are not really along one dimension but are derived from the position and direction of a datapoint. The design of the interface serves to emphasize that it is the act of navigating, traveling through the data that is key, with the image presented after clicking OK being an anticlimax.
